SGA plans events for school year

Blair's Student Government Association (SGA) plans to implement a variety of changes during the upcoming school year, including expanding communication with Blazers by launching a new website and changing "Class Colors Day" to "School Colors Day" during Spirit Week.

The theme for the Friday of Spirit Week was changed to School Colors Day to prevent freshmen hazing, according to SGA President Alex Bae. Seniors and sophomores will wear red, while juniors and freshmen will wear white. In past years, each class wore a different color. Principal Darryl Williams negotiated this issue in a meeting with the SGA.

Although Bae recognized that the change will be controversial with the student body, he understood the reasoning behind the administration's decision. "We're representing our school more than our class," he said.

The SGA also hopes to improve communication and awareness within the Blair community this year. The planned website will broadcast information on upcoming SGA-sponsored events such as tomorrow's blood drive and next week's Spirit Week, according to Bae. The old website, which functioned more as a blog, will be modified to include polls and videos. The new website will also be connected to the Blair homepage to make it more accessible to students.

Bae hopes that the new version will be a viable resource for student communication with the SGA. "The only way you can get accurate and constructive feedback is through effective communication," he said. "I'm hoping that plenty of people see what a resource it could be and use it to check up on what's going on."

SGA will kick off its busy year with a blood drive on Sept. 11. 226 people signed up to donate blood, according to sophomore SGA member Justin Kaplan-Markley. This number exceeds the SGA's original goal by more than 100 people.

The Homecoming dance, scheduled for Saturday, Sept. 26, will feature Las Vegas-themed decorations. The SGA also planned Spirit Week around this motif, assigning class themes based on distinctive Las Vegas hotels, which are reflected in the Thursday spirit theme.

Spirit Week will take place the week after next, culminating in a pep rally on Friday, Sept. 25 and Homecoming dance the next day. The themes are Pajama Day, Cartoon Character Day, Wacky Tacky Day, Class Theme Day and School Colors Day. For Class Theme Day, freshmen will represent "Circus Circus", sophomores will represent "Caesar's Palace," juniors will represent "Hard Rock Hotel" and seniors will be "Treasure Island."

SGA members also spoke of a tentative schedule for school events after homecoming. Plans for the rest of the year include an activity fair on Sept. 18, an outdoor movie on Oct. 2, the annual canned food drive in December and a school dance on Dec. 18 and another blood drive in the spring.

In addition to launching a new website, the SGA has made videos for InfoFlow on SGA-sponsored events like the freshmen elections and blood drive to improve communication. Videos will match a face with the broader organization of SGA, Bae said, so that "people can see who we are and they won't be afraid to come up and talk with us in person."

The SGA has also been utilizing Facebook to keep Blazers informed about events such as t-shirt sales, the blood drive and homecoming. Bae wants to make the SGA very accessible to the student body. "Everyone in the school deserves to have an opportunity to give their opinion to the administration and to the SGA," he said.

SGA sponsor Claudette Smith called this month "one of the busiest Septembers," due to the fact that the homecoming dance is earlier than usual. "Between all of those things we're overloaded," she said. "Everyone's working overtime."

Despite the time crunch, Bae expressed confidence in the SGA's ability to manage the event schedule. The SGA, comprised of around 30 members, is larger than in past years, a fact he believes will bolster the group's success. Bae also believes that the group's diversity will provide success throughout the year. "Itís a really good representation of the school as a whole," Bae said.

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senior on September 11, 2009 at 7:52 PM

great job alex, figuring out what this school needs the most. sga clearly tries pretty hard, but the reason it usually falls short is because of miscommunication between sga and the rest of the student body. using infoflow and facebook should help get students more involved in school and school spirit. spirit week and the pep rally are coming up, and i hope to see the school pumped up and excited.

however, the other point... REALLY? freshmen and juniors wearing the same colors? i have to say if i were a junior, i'd be pretty pissed. it's not like freshmen ever all wore gray anyways, and having them wear the same colors as juniors won't exactly prevent hazing either. i think the juniors' toes are getting stepped upon.. but if they don't care, i guess it's not a big deal.

I think it's funny that freshman are afraid to get hazed because nobody cares honestly. We have better things to do than bully them. It's my senior year and i've waited four years to wear red and REPRESENT MY CLASS like blair always does. I don't want to share with sophomores. It was just fine last year when freshman and sophomores shared colors. Why change everything now. Did people all of a sudden realize that silver and black aren't our colors because they're in most of our sports uniforms. I understand the point of representing our school vs. class but we do that regardless. Ex. pj's pants and t-shirts.

And how is SGA gonna choose a vegas theme when we can't even have the decorations necessary because they aren't appropriate. This school year isn't going as expected.

yes i totally agree. why dont seniors just wear red and everyone else wear white. plus the new policy wont stop hazing. if juniors and freshmen are wearing the same color, u can still tell WHO THE FRESHMEN ARE. so bullying could still happen.

i think it's really kind of dumb to have freshman and juniors wearing white and seniors and sophomores wearing red. last year was fine, even though being a sophomore kind of sucked because you had to share the class color with the freshman..but it's better than just having red and white. where's the diversity of colors? if anything, upperclassmen should be red and white and underclassmen should be black and grey, same as always. no need to change what was fine before!!!

I'm a senior too - I get that you're pissed.
Believe me when I say that this isn't something that SGA was too happy about. But in the end, the administration has the final word on what goes on at Blair. Class Colors wasn't changed; it was removed.
I'm sorry you guys aren't happy. Maybe we can have something special organized for the seniors later in the year. Something better than just wearing a red t-shirt for just one day in the year.

like really juniors and freshmen and seniors and sophomores backwards much ? and you act like people actually went after the colors of the clothes you can tell a freshman from everyone else and who does freshmen hazing , no one with a life.

Yeah i think it's so dumb that juniors and freshmen are white and seniors and sophomores are red. Class of 2011 has gotten stuck with the freshman color every year at blair. Freshman year we were gray, sophomore we were black and so were the freshmen, and finally, we would get to wear white this year as upperclassmen...and they make freshmen the same colors. I understand trying to make people more unified and stuff, but why don't you make juniors and seniors red, and sophomores and freshman white? I know juniors would feel bad wearing red because it's the senior color, but it's better than sophomores wearing it.

I need to know about tomorrow because tomorrow is a Class Day and this week is SPIRIT WEEK and the techer don't know what colors are for the freshmans,sophomores, juniors, and seniors. Need Help Answer